Anti-war and anti-sense: Yesterday the future Mrs. Tacitean and I had the incredibly good fortune to be in Vermont's capital (Motto: "Montpelier - don't blink or you'll miss us") during an anti-war protest!
The march began at City Hall and leisurely made its way to the capitol building a few blocks away. It numbered in the hundreds and comprised more than just anti-war groups.
From our vantage at a streetside restaurant, we watched as an assortment of young and old folk carried banners, dressed in character, and generally opposed everything I agree with. We were joined in our viewing by a couple seated next to us (one of whom looked somewhat like Andrew Sullivan... no accent, though), who shared our light-hearted attitude toward the affair.
Not content to end our fun there, we went to the capitol steps where we heard 'speakers' (and there I'm being charitable) try to connect the dots between the occupation of Palestine, workers' rights abroad, the progressive socialist lot in the USA, and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
The funniest moments for me were when a speaker would try to rouse the crowd. I say this because the crowd, being made up of so many different groups with different aims, couldn't agree on what to shout. So they just shouted it all at once! A sample of sloganeering:
Speaker: What do we want?
Crowd: Bilpanhebtlaaehcre!
Speaker: When do we want it?
Crowd: NOW!
Speaker: And what do we want after that?!?
Crowd: More bilpanhebtlaaehcre!
Another favorite moment was when one of the speakers decried petroleum, coal, and nuclear energy in succession. It seems one of the 'real' reasons we started the Iraq war was so the nuclear energy industry - nefarious lot that they are - could use up its excess uranium stores on our own troops. Or something.
By far the best moment - one so good that I said 'I've had enough' and left - was when a nicely dressed UVM student, head of the Social Justice League (he took over after Green Lantern left, I guess), told the crowd that "national security" was the same as "fascism."
His authority on this was Huey Long. HUEY LONG! The same Louisiana governor who centralized all authority into himself to turn his state into a proto-communist dictatorship in the 1930s. He would know what absolute power looked like, I guess.
This same speaker then urged a counter-protester to go to Iraq where he could die of radiation poisioning. Lovely.
So there's my first peace protest. It variously advocated bad music, aggressive socialism, centralized authority of a workers' government, oh yeah, and something about abandoning all foreign military commitments.
Now where have I heard that before?
The march began at City Hall and leisurely made its way to the capitol building a few blocks away. It numbered in the hundreds and comprised more than just anti-war groups.
From our vantage at a streetside restaurant, we watched as an assortment of young and old folk carried banners, dressed in character, and generally opposed everything I agree with. We were joined in our viewing by a couple seated next to us (one of whom looked somewhat like Andrew Sullivan... no accent, though), who shared our light-hearted attitude toward the affair.
Not content to end our fun there, we went to the capitol steps where we heard 'speakers' (and there I'm being charitable) try to connect the dots between the occupation of Palestine, workers' rights abroad, the progressive socialist lot in the USA, and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
The funniest moments for me were when a speaker would try to rouse the crowd. I say this because the crowd, being made up of so many different groups with different aims, couldn't agree on what to shout. So they just shouted it all at once! A sample of sloganeering:
Speaker: What do we want?
Crowd: Bilpanhebtlaaehcre!
Speaker: When do we want it?
Crowd: NOW!
Speaker: And what do we want after that?!?
Crowd: More bilpanhebtlaaehcre!
Another favorite moment was when one of the speakers decried petroleum, coal, and nuclear energy in succession. It seems one of the 'real' reasons we started the Iraq war was so the nuclear energy industry - nefarious lot that they are - could use up its excess uranium stores on our own troops. Or something.
By far the best moment - one so good that I said 'I've had enough' and left - was when a nicely dressed UVM student, head of the Social Justice League (he took over after Green Lantern left, I guess), told the crowd that "national security" was the same as "fascism."
His authority on this was Huey Long. HUEY LONG! The same Louisiana governor who centralized all authority into himself to turn his state into a proto-communist dictatorship in the 1930s. He would know what absolute power looked like, I guess.
This same speaker then urged a counter-protester to go to Iraq where he could die of radiation poisioning. Lovely.
So there's my first peace protest. It variously advocated bad music, aggressive socialism, centralized authority of a workers' government, oh yeah, and something about abandoning all foreign military commitments.
Now where have I heard that before?
posted by Joshua @ 3:14 PM
4 Comments:
Josh, please don't judge all peace protests based on that. There are always those people on your side of issues that you kind of wish weren't.... yeah...
And by the way, most of us liberal hippies? We would NEVER advocate bad music.
But even the most liberal hippie can do better than crowd-rallying protest Madlibs, which is what the crowd-interactive part most resembled. From our vantage point near the International Socialists table, we could hear various responses to "what do we want?", so Tacitean and I joked about an interchange going:
Speaker: What do we want?
Crowd: _____________(noun)!
Speaker: When do we want it?
Crowd: _____________ (adverb)!
Speaker: What do we want next?
Crowd: _____________ (different noun)!
A catch-all crowd really gave a Mad-Lib feel to the event.
I was disappointed that the peace rally devolved at some points to an "anti-troops" rally. As I explained to my high school students back in 2003 (when they had devised a point system for who was "winning" based on CNN coverage), it is quite all right to disagree with the war itself, but you must support the troops. They are doing their jobs just as much as you or me. Yesterday, when a gentleman worked his way to the front carrying a sign that said, "Nuke Iraq" (with quaint duct-tape lettering), the Green Lantern's successor replied with, "Dude, why don't you go serve," as if this were an analogue to the everpresent "Dude, go to hell" that is a common refrain during a disagreement.
Oh, and Kelly, the bad song Tacitean mentioned was written by and performed by a gentleman who was introduced as a conscientious objector from the Vietnam War. One can only assume that he qualifies as a rather liberal hippie, and he most certainly advocated bad music. Another new favorite is "‘pre-emptive’ song [the] band wrote, & recorded against any possible draft the Bush administration might implement in the unknown future." Curious? Check it out here!
Tac, what you've got to understand, and maybe you do, is that these guys are the abolute lunatic fringe of the left wing (the lunatic fringe that the right wing has filled with cross-burners and abortion-clinic bombers) and thus are maybe not the best examples of the anti-war cause. If I were trying to get the truth out, orcodify my side, I'd probably explain that every pretense under which the war was carried out is not only demonstrably false, but intentionally falsified, and that the purpose for this militarization and culture of fear has as yet been used to drastically centralize the power towards one individual who will then claim absolute power. Where have I heard about that before?
First off: Hi, Mike! Pleasure to have you as a reader. Tell your friends!
Secondly: Bookie, I certainly recognize that this crew was the wingnuttiest of the wingnuts.
As for "the culture of fear" used as a tactic to centralize authority, that's exactly what I saw yesterday! Except the fear wasn't "oh, the evil foreigners," but "oh, the villainous government! oh, the evil capitalists sucking our blood! they are scary!" and so on.
My point: radical lefties aren't some adorable variant of liberal who have just gone too far. They are the same thing as the insane right-wing hate mongers, except their totalitarianism would have a different name.
Meet the new boss...
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